


Natus homo est.

by Naarel



Series: Living Tower 13 [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Android, Android and human relationship, F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Recovered Memories, cyborg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 11:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14810201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naarel/pseuds/Naarel
Summary: Ennie experiences major blackout. Shianna needs to fix her with help of her old friend.





	Natus homo est.

**Author's Note:**

> The Latin quote is from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Shianna slowly chewed on her breakfast sandwich, looking at the Newsgram feed. Nothing new, just few informations about anarchistic branches of Equalitans and a bunch of things about VirGear Industries fighting with ‘Elaibette Centuria’s immoral experiments’. Centuria, called also E.C. for short, was the head of Hadrium Tower, which meant she was nearly a goddess in this Dome. VirGear could either really benefit or really lose because of this feud.

If E.C. ever wanted to get Shianna’s art for whatever reason… that would get her incredibly rich. 

 

The dreaming was interrupted by Ennie, kissing her girlfriend on her cheek, warm smile on her face. 

“How are your mood levels today?” Ennie asked. 

“I’m pretty much fine. I’m waiting for the next client to give me a nice commission.”

“Never thought that drawing can grant you so much money.”

“The myth of artistic Outsiders does that. If I was the Domer, there would be no way anybody would pay me this much.”

“I am sure it isn’t only because of that! Your art is… aesthetically pleasing, that’s all.” 

 

Shianna laughed. Ennie was so incredibly adorable with her ways of expressing her feelings. It’s known that androids can’t really get the whole art thing - they can only appreciate things they were programmed to see as aesthetic. Poorer Domers who wanted to have some art done would go to an artdroid, but an artdroid was programmed to make a piece that will correspond to their samples of “pretty art”. Domers that could allow themselves to buy something of better quality would meet with an Outsider. Common myth told that an Outsider experienced a lot more than the Domer, so their art can be somehow  _ fuller.  _ And Shianna was the best.

 

“I really regret I can’t truly appreciate your art” Ennie said quietly, her engine slowing a little. “It… sucks to be programmed to feel this way, you know? I don’t even know if my love is true. I don’t know.”

“Ennie. It is true. I know it.” 

“But I don’t know. I’m really upset about it and I can’t even cry. Maybe I’m not even upset. Maybe I’m just feeling what the code is telling me to feel.”

“Ennie.”

 

Shianna felt like something just stopped her heart. It was just hard to comprehend android’s struggles but she was willing to do everything to make her girlfriend happy. 

Ennie flinched, feeling Shianna’s touch on her shoulder. She protested against a hug but finally gave in, her fists clenching as another bad data overflow slowly corrupted her virtual mind.

 

“Shianna, I’m not built for you. I… can’t understand so many things. I can’t understand your art. I can’t even satisfy you in a human way and I really-”

“Ennie” Shianna whispered softly, stroking Ennie’s hair. “I don’t give a damn. If you don’t understand, I can teach you. And I don’t need to be, uh…  _ satisfied  _ this way by you. It doesn’t make a difference. I guess sometimes I behave like it does but… don’t think I require it from you. Your whole existence satisfies me, wait, no. It’s beyond simple satisfaction.”

 

Ennie sighed, corrupted data coming in and slowly replacing all nice thoughts she had.

_ Useless _ , Master’s voice said, volume increasing endlessly until Shianna’s words became a mess of static noises. Sudden feeling of guilt overwhelmed her but she didn’t know how.

If only she were a human, like…

...like who? 

 

“Ennie? Ennie, can you hear me?”

No response, android’s eyes turning to blue, scanning lines going crazy. An error.

 

***

_ FileAccess denied _

 

“Your mother denied you” Shianna murmured, trying to find a way to unlock corrupted files so she could find a way to repair Ennie again. This was the third time she needed repairing and it was kinda much for two years. Still, it didn’t discourage Shianna from keeping Ennie and loving her even more. 

 

_ Input: AS//systemcheck _

_ Checking… _

_ Invalid file format in Memory Sector. Please try again. _

 

Shianna typed few more commands, each and every one failing to do anything. She wasn’t this advanced in solving corruption problems… but she knew somebody who was.

 

Quick holophone call…

 

“Yeah?” a familiar robotic voice answered.

“Dawa, you’re an expert on corrupted data, aren’t you?” Shianna asked. 

“Yeah. Need my help with something?”

“I need to unlock some data.”

 

Half an hour later, Dawa arrived at Shianna’s door. They were looking slightly different, their black hair and eyes lighter, waist slimmer and skin a little bit more pale. Respiratory mask was still there, silent humming hearable. 

 

“Yo” Dawa said, waving friendly and taking their motorglider gloves off, tribal tattoos showing on their palms. Dawa once had a different name but got rid of it during the Ceremony, a ritual which nature was unknown to Shianna. That was always the point where Dawa changed their pronouns – Shianna never knew what they were before.

“Oh, hi. You can leave your gloves in the charging station if you want.”

“Nah, thanks. They’re almost fully charged. Get me to the thing you wanna unlock.”

 

Shianna led her friend to Ennie.

 

“Oh fuck, Shianna, where did you find it?” Dawa whispered, soft glitch in their voice. “This is Marxon’s servdroid. How the fuck?”

 

Dawa leaned forward, their eyes now opened wide in surprise. They kneeled by Ennie and examined her closely.

 

“Not any servdroid. This is Scarla.”

“Scarla? What do you mean?” Shianna could feel her heart beating hard. 

Dawa sighed in a robotic manner. 

“Marxon’s daughter’s compdroid. Her exact copy. Probably the data you want to unlock are memory files, right?”

“Yes. Anything wrong about that?”

“I wouldn’t want to unlock it. You might not like what you see there.”

 

Shianna hesitated. She looked at Ennie’s face; it had no expression whatsoever. Like she died or fell into coma of some sort. Maybe both would fit. 

So vulnerable. She definitely didn't deserve being in this state forever. 

 

“Dawa, I want to have her in the world of living again. I don’t care what kind of things I might see there. Her life depends on it.”

“So you weren’t joking when you said that you love her.”

“It’s not a thing to joke about and you know it.”

 

Dawa shrugged, trying to make their memory go away. They sighed and searched the pockets of their jacket to find a single cable and something that looked like a monocle. Searching further, they managed to retrieve another cable – this one was meant to be plugged to their mask that was, in fact, far more than just a mask now, serving a purpose of holophone as well. 

 

“Take these. You’ll need it” Dawa said, extending their hand with a monocle and the second cable towards Shianna.

“Why?”

“You know, in order to unlock it, someone has to go through it. And Scarla’s in standby mode. Also, there’s no fucking way I’ll go through it.” 

 

Shianna sighed and took the monocle, plugging the cable to it and placing it on her right eye. 

“I’m ready. I… just go ahead with it.”

 

Dawa nodded hesitantly and closed their eyes. It was clearly visible that they’re focused, as they needed a lot of focus to control everything just with their mask. It may have been advanced to the point of connecting with Dawa’s brain though it still needed undivided attention. 

“You know you need to go through the whole thing, right?”

“Just give this shit to me.”

 

Sharp pain went through Shianna’s right eye, like somebody just drove a needle through it. She flinched and groaned, trying to close her right eye, but the monocle was keeping it open. Left eye shut tight, she had no choice but watch the scene unravel in front of her.

 

_ “Dad, is she there?” a girl with strawberry blonde hair and red eyes asked, tugging her father’s sleeve as he typed in command after command. _

_ “I’m pretty much sure, Scarlie” he said, laughing a little. His voice was warm and full of love. Definitely the best place you could wake up to. _

_ “Hello world”, you say. It was the programmed phrase used to find out if the android was well functioning. You certainly were. _

_ “Welcome home, Scarla!” the man said, leaving his command station and hugging you tightly. You hugged him back, feeling as your motors move for the first time in your life. _

_ “Dad! I want to hug her too!” Scarlie giggled, sending a light punch to her father’s shoulder. _

_ “Oh, fine!”  _

_ He stepped back, his steel grey eyes sparkling with joy. Scarlie pulled you in a close embrace, smiling bright. _

_ “You can call her your sister, you know.” _

_ “I will, we totally look like twins! And our names are similar too! You really thought this out, dad!”  _

_ Dad hugged you both. _

 

_ You knew you aren’t biological and will never grow up like Scarlie will. You’ll stay in this form until dad will give you a new body, more mature one. He will. He really cares about you both, treating you both like his daughters. You never saw mom though. Scarlie tried to explain it to you, telling you something about ways to create people without actual procreation means, but you couldn’t get it until you connected to the Holopedia. You spent hours looking at Holopedia with Scarlie: she was trying to comprehend androids and you were trying to comprehend humans.  _

_ Days went by in the sweet haze of happiness. _

 

_ Until this one day. _

 

_ “Scarlie?” you ask, trying to ignore the buzzing of your thoughts that meant incoming data overflow. “I don’t like how it all feels like. My sensors are… malfunctioning a little. We should go back.” _

_ She nods, her red eyes shrinking a little in fear of… of what? _

_ “Scarla, can you… oh my… Scarla, can you see it?” she whispers, her pupils now smaller than ever. “There’s a cyborg but…”  _

_ You looked in this direction. There definitely was a cyborg with black Equalitian robe on their body, or at least what remained of it. The cloth was ripped to shreds, stained with some fluid that was shining blue. All the ferrological implants were missing, leaving a gaping hole in place where mouth should be. Their throat was also mangled, artificial blood in neon yellow colour slowly drying on the concrete.  _

_ “They’re dead” you whisper, trying to get your sensors to work properly to search for this person in Hadrium Tower Database. Nothing. No connection to HTD, please try again. _

_ No connection? Hadrium Tower emited enough data to make you able to connect to it’s database in the whole city. _

_ “I need to call the Peacekeepers” Scarlie says, taking her holophone out of her pocket. _

_ No connection. _

_ It makes you panic. The buzzing becomes unbearable, filling your head with code that is irrational, just gibberish made to… _

_...overload your data and make you unable to do anything at all. _

_ “Scarlie, we need-”  _

_ It becomes painful and you shake trying to finish the sentence. _

_ “t-to ge-EeE-t o-o-o-o…” _

_ Blackout. _

 

_ “Scarla… Scarla… if you can still hear me... “ _

 

_ “Scarla… I… don’t know what to do anymore.” _

 

_ Pathetic. You’re so useless. You really wish you could help but you can’t feel much, you don’t see anything, being knocked out for good. The only thing you could comprehend was Scarlie’s voice, filled with some kind of pain you’ve never heard. _

_ Useless… _

 

_ “Scarla, we’ll die here.” _

 

_ “I’m actually glad you don’t… know what’s going on… it hurts.” _

 

_ “Scarla… if you ever get out of here, tell dad I loved him. I’m not sure if I wanna be alive anymore.” _

 

_ “I’m not sure about what kind of substance it is but…” _

 

_ Silence. _

_ Nothing but unbroken silence.  _

 

_ You wake up, dad’s face above your own. He’s got that disgusted expression, cleaning something blue from your cheeks. Seems like he doesn’t care about your awakening. _

_ You can see his tears, he’s disgusted but he’s crying. _

_ Scarlie is nowhere to be found and it makes a chill go through your body. It’s strangely numb. _

_ “Dad”, you say. “Dad, fix me.” _

_ No answer. _

_ “Dad… she didn’t want to live but she loved you. Is she okay?” _

_ His lips twitched, hand reaching for a knife used to cut the synthetic skin.  _

_ “Dad… I couldn’t do anything…”  _

 

_ “...Dad?” _

 

_ Quick slice through the left side of your face made you shriek in pain, feeling as sparks shoot from your new wound.  _

 

_ “Don’t call me like that.” _

_ These are the last words you remember. _

 

“I… completely don’t understand” Shianna said, trying to take the monocle off. Dawa stopped her. 

“Don’t open your eye yet. In the span of next twenty four hours, it should be closed.”

“That’s exactly what I needed. Thaanks.”

Dawa closed their eyes, searching for something in the console.

“She’s ready to be restarted.”

“So what are you waiting for?”

 

Ennie opened her eyes and took a deep breath, like she was deprived of it. It’s not like she really needed breathing, but still. 

“Shianna, who’s that?” she asked, looking at Dawa’s masked face.

“Dawa Shandai. Nice to meet you.”

“Oh. So, hi Dawa.” 

 

Few minutes of awkward silence went by as Dawa and Shianna unplugged the cables.

“Did my systems fail again?” Ennie asked with a hint of disappointment in her voice. 

“It wasn’t your fault, some kind of data was corrupted and we needed to get it out.” Dawa’s voice was as warm as the robotic tone allowed it to. “You’ll be fine though, you’re a tough girl.”

Shianna helped Ennie in standing up. The android hugged her tightly, with a bit of anxiety coming from the fact that they weren’t alone.

“Dawa’s a friend, don’t worry” Shianna whispered, smiling to the cyborg. “They helped me to fix you.”

“Thanks, Dawa!” 

“No problemo, Tinheart.”

 

Ennie turned to them, curious about the new word.

“Tinheart?” she asked. “I know that tin is some kind of material but… it isn’t used in ferrology as it isn’t that resistant to the-”

“It’s a joke, don’t worry. Actually, a reference, but that’s an old story you don’t wanna know.” Dawa chuckled a little, wearing their gloves. “I gotta go fast, they need me in another settlement.”

“Settlement?” Ennie was absolutely confused. “Will you go outside then? Can you bring me something from there?”

They couldn’t stop laughing, taking their right glove off and ruffling Ennie’s hair. 

“There are references older than Hadrium itself, I highly doubt you’ll get any of them.”

“B-but I want to!”

Dawa was already sitting on their motorglider, blowing a kiss to both girls before vanishing into the giant space of District H.

 

The days went by. Ennie wasn’t really bothered by all the things that were happening, though she gained one weird interest: stories about transformations. She didn’t reveal that interest earlier, so Shianna started thinking it’s some kind of thing in her code that was hidden and now was unlocked.

 

_ “Sanctius his animal mentisque capacius altae _ _   
_ _ deerat adhuc et quod dominari in cetera posset: _ _   
_ _ natus homo est, sive hunc divino semine fecit _ _   
_ _ ille opifex rerum, mundi melioris origo, _ _   
_ _ sive recens tellus seductaque nuper ab alto _ _   
_ __ aethere cognati retinebat semina caeli”  Ennie recited, looking at the sky, brightening every second as the sun was rising. 

“I didn’t know you know… wait, what kind of language is that?” Shianna asked, both shocked and impressed; some androids had really advanced speech modules, which allowed them to learn a language in really quick time. 

“Latin.”

“Isn’t it dead since, I don’t know, sixteenth century? Or even earlier?”

“As long as you can learn the language, it isn’t dead.”

“Mind telling me what it means?”

Ennie sighed, weak smile on her face.

“More sacred than these, an animal more capable of a higher mind, the one which could rule over the rest, was still absent. Man was born, either made from divine seed by that Maker of things, the origin of a better world,   
or the newborn earth, lately severed from the lofty heaven, retained the seed of the kindred sky.”

“Wow. That’s a lot of words. I guess I’m too uneducated to get the meaning.”

“Have you ever thought about the differences between us?” 

 

Shianna looked into her cup filled with synthcoffee and sighed.

“You’re as human as me. Don’t forget about it, ever.”

“It’s not what I meant. We both had to be created by something. Your Maker is biology, my Maker is technology. Is this correct?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Sometimes, people improve biology with technology. Is this correct?”

“Yes, but I don’t get where we’re going.”

“Why can’t we improve technology with biology then?” Ennie asked, her eyes opened wide, scanning lines going crazy. Shianna felt a shiver going down her spine. Suddenly, the synthcoffee tasted like metal.

“Ennie, I don’t like the sound of it.”

“I’m just theorizing, don’t worry!” The android laughed and it made Shianna feel better. “I’m just wondering why it is like that. Why humans can be androids to some extent but androids can’t be partially human? I just… don’t understand.”

Shianna tried to answer but her holophone rang.

“Sorry, I have to pick up. Maybe this fucker finally decided on colours.”

 

_ “Hello” _ , said the familiar mature voice.  _ “May I talk to Miss Shianna Tiebreak?” _

 

Elaibette Centuria.

 

Fucking Elaibette Centuria calling her.

 

“Yes, she- I mean, I’m here.”

E.C. laughed softly.

_ “No need to be nervous, Miss Tiebreak. I need an artist for a… special task. And if you aren’t the best one suited for this task, then I don’t know who is. Of course, you can dismiss this task, though I’d be extremely disappointed if it happened.” _

“I-I won’t dismiss it! I promise I’ll do my best! I just need to know what to do and-”

_ “I have to show you what I need. It isn’t the usual task but I do believe you can do it. Let’s meet in my office in Hadrium Tower. I’m there from seven at morning to seven past morning. I’ll send you two invitation codes so you won’t be stopped by the guards.” _

“You two…?” Shianna whispered. Ennie raised her head and looked at her in confusion.

_ “I know about your little friend but don’t worry. She’ll be treated as human as possible, as I don’t approve marxonian ways of treating androids. But, enough talking for now. I am a pretty busy woman and I guess you are as well. I’ll be waiting for you both. Have a nice day!” _

“Nice day to you as well, Miss Centuria!” Shianna nearly screamed as the call ended. 

“Ennie! We’ll go on a trip tomorrow!”

“I haven’t been out since forever… I see you’re really happy today, that’s good!”

 

Ennie was happy when Shianna was happy.

This day was spent on daydreaming and other nice activities.

All the bad things didn’t exist.


End file.
